It's no surprise to anyone who witnessed the injury, be it on hand at the University of Florida's O'Connell Center or on TV via ESPN or in the pictures posted later online.

"I met with Nerlens earlier today. The meeting was really positive, and I loved his attitude," UK coach John Calipari wrote on Twitter Wednesday afternoon. "The way he is already dealing with this injury lets me know that he is going to come back stronger than ever.

"Obviously, this is not a career-ending injury and it’s one that athletes bounce back from all the time. The good news is he is insured, so he would have been fine even if the injury would have been worse."

The lasting images are of Noel leaping to block Mike Rosario's fast-break layup, his knee buckling on landing and then Noel writhing in pain on the floor beneath the basket.

Noel left the court in the arms of four teammates. He then left the O'Connell Center in a wheelchair and arrived home on the Kentucky campus early Wednesday on crutches.

"His leg was wobbly, knee looked dislocated," Florida center Patric Young said after the game. "It was gruesome. I don't want to think about it.

"It looked really bad. He was holding it, and it was jingling around."

Noel was the nation's most decorated recruit last year and came in to Tuesday's game averaging 10.6 points, 9.6 rebounds and nation-best 4.5 blocks per game. There were 16 NBA scouts at Tuesday night's game, and they had to like what they saw from the 6-10 Noel.

He's raw offensively, but his lanky frame and timing make him a defensive dynamo. Rosario missed the shot Noel went after, but it appeared Noel hyper-extended his knee and then banged it against the base of the basket.

He crumpled to the floor and grabbed the knee tightly. His screams echoed through the suddenly silent arena. After about five minutes, four teammates carried him off the court.

Noel had eight points, six rebounds and three blocks before getting hurt.

Noel's defense has been the only consistent this season for the up-and-down Wildcats. Any sort of extended absence would crush not only Kentucky's chance to make a deep NCAA Tournament run, but it would put an at-large bid in serious jeopardy, too.

"I’ve been coaching for 22 years, and this is the first injury we’ve had of this kind during the season, which makes it even more devastating," Calipari said Wednesday.

With Noel out for the season, it puts an incredible amount of pressure on developing 7-footer Willie Cauley-Stein to fill Noel's shoes and lead the defending-champion Wildcats off the NCAA Tournament bubble and into the field. After Tuesday's loss, Kentucky is 17-7 overall and 8-3 in SEC play. They entered the game ranked No. 25 in the AP college basketball poll, having just returned to the list.

"It's truly a shame that what's happened to Nerlens Noel, and I'm sorry to see that for him personally and for the Kentucky team," Mike Bobinski, chairman of the NCAA Selection Committee, said Wednesday afternoon. "The reality is we have about 4 1/2 weeks of basketball left to be able to watch Kentucky play and to see how they perform without him in the lineup now, and that will really tell the story, I think, of how we ultimately judge and view Kentucky.

"It's way too early to consider them in, out, or in between. We don't do that with anybody at this point in time. But we'll clearly be watching them closely to see how they're able to play without a young man that's clearly been an important part of their success to this point."

Cauley-Stein himself is just coming back from a knee injury, albeit minor. He missed four full games and hardly played in two others because of an old football knee injury. He had a bone chip floating in the joint, causing discomfort and limiting movement and had a minor surgery to remove the chip.

Cauley-Stein made his return Feb. 2 in a cameo appearance and then returned to the regular rotation on Feb. 5. In his three full games back, Cauley-Stein averaged 11.7 points and 5.3 rebounds.